Here is my personal theory:

Having been through abusive or difficult personal relationships /in general/ increases the chance that a woman will gravitate towards less-than-ideal issues as an adult.  For me, my father wasn't abusive, but I think some other people in my life (male and female) were.

I don't know how the psychology works for everyone, but for me I know when I started out dating I had a pretty low opinion of myself, so I felt like I should be glad that /anyone/ liked me, and anyone who was at all kinder than what I was used to seemed like a good person.  Then, anyone who acted /too/ nice just didn't seem genuine, and I'm (rightly or wrongly) less likely to trust them.  But those are just my issues -other people may have others.

But, I have also heard of women with great fathers becoming involved in abusive relationships.  Assholes and abusive men aren't that uncommon, unfortunately...

'Sinteresting. I always thought the whole "daddy" thing was a bit creepy, overly bogus Freudian, and so forth. But . . . well . . . my father is intellectually brilliant and emotionally blocked to the point that my mother sort of thinks he might have mild Asperger's (yeah, I know, it's the "in" diagnosis of the times, but still.) He's the go-to guy if you want info on radio telescopes, mortgage rates, or obscure political facts from the 1800s. Not so much if you want a hug. He's also a typical nerdy, pudgy, nonathletic Jew. Upper middle-class college professor.

So I married a hot, athletic, muscular blue-collar goy. Bike messenger. Who seemed to be in touch with his feeligs although not to the icky mushy SNAG level, physically affectionate, and a demon in the sack. Oh, and younger than me, too. The polar opposite of my dad . . . right? So, fast-forward 20 years. I seem to be married to a hot, athletic pseudo-academic (on leave from a Ph.D. program) guy who is brilliant but so emotionally distant that reading "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time" gave me the creeps. If you want to know about abstract mathematics, medieval history, or color theory, he's your go-to guy. Want a hug? Not so much. Dude.

Daddy issues are incredibly common. Luckily mine wasn't so fucked up that I wind up in abusive relationships trying to replicate that same relationship with my father.

I do however wind up in relationships with geeky, smart, but completely emotionally unavailable men. Which is exactly like my Father.

The question that I have about all this, is are there any good fathers? It seems like almost every woman I know had a shitty one and is now dealing with daddy issues in dating. How do you break free from that aside from many many expensive years in therapy?

Do men have similar problems? Do they always wind up dating women like their mother?

The relationship with my dad has been rocky and then sometimes great but i try my hardest not to let that seep into my relationships with guys i think if you have had a good relationship and your dad has a good relationship with your mother then there will always be the element of 'i want a man to look after me life my dad did' - that might happen but then you also might get sick of it.

There are always two sides to a story but this is one there are many more!

In observing female friends who have daddy issues, the thing that sticks out the most to me is not that they replicate patterns they had with their fathers necessarily, but that relationships with men are disproportionately important to them. These are your classic girlfriends-who-disappear-whenever-they've-got-a-bf, some of them haven't been single for more than a month since high school. Often it seems that they choose men who are more "dad-like" than like their fathers, you know stable, secure bear types. For my part, my parents are happily married, but I saw my dad as sort of a non-entity on the masculinity register and am not really attracted to men like him, but then I realized that all the men I've dated have been big music nerds (just like dad) so it still snuck in there somewhere. I think to a certain extent it's just what your comfortable with, talking about cultural stuff with men is part of how I learned to interact with them from an early age.

Princess:  Yes, men have the same issues with dysfunctional moms.  I spent 20 years trying to date my late mother to try to replicate and then fix the relationship.  I finally learned (cue "years of expensive therapy") that no one can fix anyone else (with really good luck, one may be able to fix oneself).  What broke the cycle finally was realizing that my mother's problems were not my fault.  She wasn't "enough" for herself, and therefore, I could have been the most perfect, wonderful child in history, and it would have made no difference.  Once I let go of the guilt -- realizing that I had nothing to feel guilty about -- I didn't need to "fix" the relationship anymore or redeem myself or atone, etc., so I was able to let go of the repetition compulsion of dating women who would never be happy with me.  Six months after that epiphany, I met the woman who's now my wife.  So one can break old, dysfunctional patterns, but like a lot of things, until you see it, you don't see it.

i desperately hope i don't end up with a person like my father.  i was raised practically without him (seeing him 10 days out of the year was a huge feat), and he's been not the greatest of people.. so the thought of marrying someone of his stature makes me cringe a little.

if we're being honest...

@passthepeanutbutter

Based on my incredibly limited knowledge of pop psychology, I'm going to take a leap and guess that it probably won't affect you too much. If I never saw my Dad, or barely knew him, I probably wouldn't be looking for a man similar to him. After all, how would I really know what to look for?

But given the absentee nature of your Dad, that probably means you get a whole other set of Daddy issues to deal with. Good luck.

I had the typical nuclear family growing up with a loving father who was more than available to me and deeply supportive.

Yet, I am only attracted to men who verbally abuse me. I literally can't be attracted to nice guys. I've almost come to accept that fact that nice guys just don't fulfill me.

I think it has something to do with the fact that my mom always seemed so miserable with my nice guy dad.

Hey, I love my dad! He's smart, loving, funny, expressive, and respected in his field. Ditty my mom, and they love each other so much and are so happily married still. They are both self-proclaimed feminists and progressive pollyannas.

And... my relationships are brief, dishonest affairs and I'm usually happier hooking up with strangers or people who are already involved with someone else (wife, whatever) or have some other kind of intimacy block.